I can turn my brain off for a second and enjoy this video of Priyanka Chopra in a new avatar:
Of course, I don’t understand why the other woman has to appear dressed like a man to denote that kind of ‘Dostana.’ This adoption of gayness for humor is a troubling trend that reveals the deeper homophobic attitude of India. Why on earth is a gay relationship funny and any different than a straight relationship?
So far, only men have been acting gay for humor on the big Bollywood stage (Saif Ali Khan and Shahrukh Khan have entertained us with their gay act for far too many Filmfare Awards), but now Priyanka takes the cake for going a notch further.
As you may know there will be one question on the ballot this November in Maine addressing the issue of same-sex unions. In part it will read “Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry?” A yes vote takes away the right of same-sex couples to marry. A no vote keeps the right of same-sex couples to marry. If the election were held today would you vote YES or NO on this question?
48%-YES
46%-NO
6%-NOT SURE
It’s within the margin of error but it doesn’t look good for LGBT Mainers and the fight for marriage equality.
But releasing these polls gives us more ammunition to shift all eyes and operations to Maine. I expect more donations to flood into the No on 1 coffers as people realize the gravity of the situation.
In the meanwhile, No on 1 and Travel for Change are escalating the out-of-state volunteer recruitment efforts by releasing a new “Volunteer Vacation” video and simultaneously rolling out additional online travel resources. Here is the link to the video if you haven’t seen it yet.
A recent State of the Nation 2009 CNN-IBN survey revealed quite a homophobic India. As many as 73% Indians feel homosexuality should be considered illegal while 83% felt that homosexuality is not part of Indian culture and 90% of Indians won’t give their house on rent to a gay or lesbian couple.
Watch the survey results here:
Gautam Bhan quite positively reflects that attitudes cannot be freeze-framed because they keep changing. Five years ago, he wouldn’t even be allowed to give his opinion on that platform. So some progress is definitely evident.
In light of these changing attitudes, Hindustan Times (Times Nows) is taking the lead on opening minds in advertisements which literally hits homophobia on the head. One of them goes like this: two friends are sitting in a cafe when one of them spots a gay male couple holding hands and nudges his friend, making fun of them. The friend rolls up the newspaper and hits him on the head instead. And he shuts up. It’s simply a short and sweet ad spot from Times Now about making a difference and recruiting a younger audience.Video here.
Alas, the message hasn’t reached the vernacular presses yet. Times Now–an English channel–probably has a better reach in the urban and metropolitan areas, where attitudes towards homosexuality are more likely to be liberal. But, it is the most watched English channel in India and for Times Now to take this step forward speaks volumes for the progress queers are making in India.
Lyle Masaki at AfterElton tested the new version of The Sims to see if gays and lesbians could get married. He reports: “…after a week of game time, I was able to get a male couple to plan a wedding party and tie the knot.”
We all know how much I really don’t care about gay marriage even though I blog about it often enough.
But The Sims series holds a very special place in my heart. The game, by Will Wright (Maxis), was released 1-2 years after we moved to the United States. My greatest struggle wasn’t just with the culture clash, but with confronting and coming to terms with my sexuality.
The game was a great expression of self-empowerment. It allowed us to pick our appearances right down to an earring, made us the sole decision-makers on how to run our lives. And two women and two men could actually live and sleep together, even though they couldn’t have children together. And the men could actually have babies (if abducted by aliens), but I digress. It was simply a great step forward in gender non-conformity and to give teenagers like me an opportunity to live the lives we wanted.
9 years later, we are still not there. But it was The Sims that went quite a long way in reinforcing that I was normal and loving someone of the same gender was not the big sin that everyone else made it out to be. And I am sure the bold move in The Sims 3 would reinforce this message to a younger generation.
Next two generations, if we survive global warming, I expect to hear – “Mom, this is so crazy. Once upon a time, gays couldn’t marry. WTF?!
With a 6-1 vote, separate but equal was upheld in California.
Congratulations Californians, the ‘will of the majority’ to take a particular category of people and deny them civil rights is going to stand.
The California Supreme Court, no matter what it proclaims, overturned itself with these words:
Proposition 8 does not by any means “repeal” or “strip” gay individuals or same-sex couples of the very significant substantive protections afforded by the state equal protection clause either with regard to the fundamental rights of privacy and due process or in any other area, again with the sole exception of access to the designation of “marriage” to describe their relationship.Thus, except with respect to the designation of “marriage,” any measure that treats individuals or couples differently on the basis of their sexual orientation continues to be constitutionally “suspect” under the state equal protection clause and may be upheld only if the measure satisfies the very stringent strict-scrutiny standard of review that also applies to measures that discriminate on the basis of race, gender, or religion.Because Proposition 8 has only this limited effect on the fundamental rights of privacy and due process and the guarantee of equal protection of the laws under the state Constitution as interpreted by the majority opinion in the Marriage Cases, supra, 43 Cal.4th 757, there is no need for us to consider whether a measure that actually deprives a minority group of the entire protection of a fundamental constitutional right or, even more sweepingly, leaves such a group vulnerable to public or private discrimination in all areas without legal recourse (cf. Romer v. Evans (1996) 517 U.S. 620), would constitute a constitutional revision under the provisions of the California Constitution.A narrowly drawn exception to a generally applicable constitutional principle does not amount to a constitutional revision within the meaning of article XVIII of the California Constitution.
Translation: It’s alright for the voters of the state to carve out exceptions to certain civil rights afforded to minorities that are supposedly protected by the Constitution.
What are you people smoking?
Justice Moreno, in his concurring but dissenting opinion, did state:
I conclude that requiring discrimination against a minority group on the basis of a suspect classification strikes at the core of the promise of equality that underlies our California Constitution and thus “represents such a drastic and far-reaching change in the nature and operation of our governmental structure that it must be considered a ‘revision’ of the state Constitution rather than a mere ‘amendment’ thereof.”
…
The equal protection clause is therefore, by its nature, inherently
countermajoritarian. As a logical matter, it cannot depend on the will of the majority for its enforcement, for it is the will of the majority against which the equal protection clause is designed to protect. Rather, the enforcement of the equal protection clause is especially dependent on “the power of the courts to test legislative and executive acts by the light of constitutional mandate and in particular to preserve constitutional rights, whether of individual or minority, from obliteration by the majority.”
…
In my view, the aim of Proposition 8 and all similar initiative
measures that seek to alter the California Constitution to deny a fundamental right to a group that has historically been subject to discrimination on the basis of a suspect classification, violates the essence of the equal protection clause of the California Constitution and fundamentally alters its scope and meaning. Such a change cannot be accomplished through the initiative process by a simple amendment to our Constitution enacted by a bare majority of the voters; it must be accomplished, if at all, by a constitutional revision to modify the equal protection clause to protect some, rather than all, similarly situated persons. I would therefore hold that Proposition 8 is not a lawful amendment of the California Constitution.
So the California Supreme Court decision comes down to this: Sexual orientation is a suspect class but the people can write discrimination against this suspect class into the Constitution. What prevents voters from exercising the tyranny of the majority and doing this injustice to other minority groups in the state? The California Supreme Court ignored the possibility of this, saying there was NO NEED to consider this fact.
I personally wish this issue would go away so the ‘gay movement’ can focus on other pertinent matters. Supporting a movement to uphold a regressive institution like marriage gets tiring.
I used to say that I am from California with a lot of pride. That’s certainly been stripped.
But there is hope for marriage equality advocates in California -
“Gay issues are also women’s issues because homophobia is a form of misogyny.”
-Jennifer Beals, New York Times Talk
This statement might be a no-brainer for some. The most obvious example is when flamboyant homosexual men are hated on for their ‘femininity’ and labeled as ‘not men enough.’ That is misogyny, defined as hatred or contempt for women.
Misogyny is also apparent when women are held in contempt for loving women or not seen as women simply because they may be androgynous or gender-bending.
So when I read the headline in the the Examiner article juxtaposing “Gay Right’s Versus Women’s Rights,” I went into attack mode. The writer might need to use spell check but this is the crux of her argument:
But instead, he incited another social-political battle (or battles): one that attacks those who dissent with unpopular opinions and most importantly, women and their collective integrity by haphazardly slamming a “bitch” and “cunt” label upon the beauty contestant – invalidating all of her opinions that do not resonate with his by using her femininity against her and ultimately aiming to degrade her entire worth as a person. If he had wanted to prove a political point about gay rights, he might have better expressed himself with more socially acceptable word choices instead of irrelevantly denigrating her and women through the use of his derogatory statements.
I won’t defend his choice of words and at the same time I cannot possibly come down on the side of Miss California for using the platform to spew more hatred and ignorance. “Opposite marriage?” C’mon.
At the end of the day both Ms. California and Perez Hilton are responsible for promoting misogny to the detriment of our civil rights.
When you don’t stand up to homophobia, you are just as much to blame for the bigotry that exists against the LGBT community.
I was away this week in Las Vegas for an academic conference. Unfortunately, I had called my girlfriend in Los Angeles to spend some time with me given it was her Spring Break and we hadn’t seen each other in more than 3 weeks. The week turned out to be a disaster due to the harassment that her Mexican-American parents subjected her to for coming to Vegas with me. They would not believe that I was there for a conference and moreover, accused us of eloping. Hello world -
1. I don’t run away, and
2. If I did have to run and hide somewhere, it definitely would not be smoke-infested Las Vegas while I am battling a very painful Pharyngitis
That was not the end of it. I had to bear the brunt of her daily crying and moodiness, miss most of my panels and skip other activities that I had lined up for us during leisure time. In-law dearest would not let up — on Wednesday (after we had spent most of the day at the hospital due to my illness), her mother was begging for her return to the Catholic Church. Lets not shy away from the reasons: going to church might make her little gay daughter a little less gay and she might meet a nice, handsome citizen Latino boy to marry.
The LA Times recently ran a story on Aliyah Bacchs, who is a Muslim lesbian that left an arranged marriage and came to her family with two choices: accept her sexuality or lose her forever. Her case is not an isolated incident or limited to Muslims in America as exemplified in the Channel 4 documentary that was shot in Britain.
“I think my mom would rather say that I’ve been hit by a truck than say that I am gay.”
-Farah
Abdullah says in the documentary that people pick and choose what they want from the Koran. He takes the good parts and does not believe he is doing anything wrong. After all, Allah is forgiving.
While the documentary is restrictive in terms of the fact that many faces are never shown or blurred, it still manages to explore the lives of a group of gay Muslims living in Britain, some closeted and others openly homosexual, but all struggling with some aspect of their sexuality. The double standard of condemning gay men more than lesbians is always worth mentioning : Islam does not have an opinion on lesbians but gay behavior is strongly condemned and punishable to death. That stems from living in a society where the feminine is disparaged and women are merely objects for consumption (and it is true for all countries including the United States).
There were several profound statements in the video. One that particularly struck me had to do with the intersectionality of being an ‘Asian’ and a queer. The gay community wants us to step out and be proud while the pan-Asian community wants us to remain in the closet and constrict ourselves. How does someone deal with that contradiction? Says a queer Muslim in the video, “Are they both competing with each other and we are having to pay for it? Why can’t I live my life?” Why can’t we live our lives?
It’s an un-Islamic notion to be ‘out and proud’ says one member of Imaan — the largest support group for gay Muslims (more support groups can be found here). With colorful hijabs on at Gay pride in Britain, the members of Imaan seem to tow the fine-line between leading their lives as queers who are also respectful of the modesty in Islam. But Abdullah, another gay Muslim, says he wouldn’t have hidden his identity at Pride as it is important for people to see who is speaking, who is telling their story.
Also, don't need to hear legal (privileged) queer immigrants whining about those "undocumented immigrants" getting citizenship. Really don't [Desidyke]
